It has often been assumed that the subjects of the Ottoman sultans were unable to travel beyond their localities - since peasants needed the permission of their local administrators before they could leave their villages. According to this view, only soldiers and members of the governing elite...

Poverty and charity in the rise of Islam / Michael Bonner -- Status-based definitions of need in early Islamic Zakat and maintenance laws / Ingrid Mattson -- The foreign Jewish poor in medieval Egypt / Mark R. Cohen -- "Prices are in God's hands" : the theory and practice of price control in the...